Conrad is the Interactive News Editor for the Telegraph. He writes about data and visualisations. Follow him on Twitter @Coneee.

The abundance of iPhones, iPads and iPods today makes it easy to forget that Apple wasn't always so popular. If you owned a Macintosh before 1998, you were either a creative-type with expensive specialist software, a school or a member of the devoted but small "Cult of Mac". Before Jobs returned in 1997, the company was in a desperate state.

In 1997 Michael Dell, Apple's historical rival in the desktop computer space, famously said he would "shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders" if he was in charge. Gil Amelio, Apple's CEO for 500 days between 1996 and 1997, was said to have told Jobs that "Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water". And Steve Jobs himself… Read More

Chris Huhne in a Tesla Roadster. His other car should be a diesel Fiesta.

New figures for car registrations show that the number of ultra-low-emission vehicles sold in the second quarter of this year could barely fill an average shopping-centre car park. A mere 628 all-electric cars, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen cars were registered in the three months between April and July this year, according to Department for Transport numbers.

To put these numbers into perspective, there were ten times as many cars sold in the UK in 1910 (two years after the Model T was introduced) than there were ultra-low-emission vehicles (ULEV) sold in 2010.

Only 167 of the 1,289 ULEVs registered in 2010 were all-electric. Compare that to the 2 million new vehicles registered in 2010.

If you have an hour or two free in the next few weeks, why not drop by your local town hall and inspect your council's accounts? For 20 days in June, July or August, every council is legally required to open up its draft accounts for the public to inspect. By law, this annual display has to be advertised in at least one newspaper circulating in your local area, at least 14 days before it's due to start.

In the past, if you didn't spot this notice in your paper it was pretty much tough luck, and a matter of waiting for September when the audited accounts were released (although some websites, including Richard Orange'… Read More

The Government is making transparency look easy. As I write, I'm watching tweets from Francis Maude's announcement on the publication of a raft of new Government data. Datasets on health, education, justice and transport, will all be released over the next 18 months to specific deadlines.

Judging by the Government's record on previous releases – including crime maps, spending by local and central government and civil servant salaries – there's no doubt in my mind we'll get most or all of this data.

Importantly, this new announcement isn't just about releasing more information. It's about improving the quality of current releases, and creating a new culture of transparency in government, enforced by legislation.

In the long run, the latest letter from David Cameron to his ministers could have as big an impact a… Read More

The Home Office launched www.police.uk today, which could cause house prices to tumble and make ghost towns of bad neighbourhoods. Fortunately www.police.uk won't do either of these things and here's why: it's useless.

It's useless to residents wanting to find out what was going on at the house around the corner at 3am last night, and it's useless to individuals who want to build mobile phone applications on top of the data (perhaps to get a chunk of that £6 billion industry open data is supposed to create).

The site's limitations are as follows:

• No IDs for crimes: what if I want to check whether real life crimes have made it onto the map? Sorry.

The moment George Osborne announces the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review at the Treasury tomorrow afternoon, PDF documents stuffed with big numbers will be posted online. Soon after, those big numbers will appear on the pages of newspapers (including this one) and be visualised by newspaper reporters (myself included). Simultaneously, a new website will aim to make those big numbers relevant to you and your local area. The only catch: you'll have to build it yourself.

Where Are The Cuts? is a new website designed to map the specifics of the Comprehensive Spending Review and the coalition Government's cuts agenda. According to its creator Richard Pope (who made the site with Jordan Hatch for the Open Knowledge Foundation, and created previous hits like ElectionLeaflets.org), WATC? is "all about making it relevant… Read More

Behold, the "Organogram of Government". Released in bits by the Cabinet Office, this chart details the structure and pay of people working in central Government departments. Everyone from Chief Executives and Ministers, down to employees on less than £20,000 is represented here. An insider on the Organogram project told Benedict Brogan that the aim of the project was to "expose the crap". I think the Cabinet Office can safely say it's achieved that today.

Download a full resolution version (JPG | PDF)

The Cabinet Office acknowledges that the data release "isn't perfect", which is perhaps putting it a little lightly. At this stage, anyone wanting to make sense of this information will have to burrow through two dozen different spreadsheets and PDFs, many of which are… Read More

Today's leak of the Government's list of potential Quango cuts shows that up to 177 Quangos could go. Dozens more are under review, or due for consolidation. Thanks to a Taxpayer's Alliance report (PDF link) we know roughly how much these Quangos cost to run. Using last year's report in conjunction with the leaked document, we can get an idea of how much the Government could hope to save by cutting these bodies. We can also make an estimate of how many jobs are potentially under threat.

The graphics below make some big assumptions. Here's the full caveat list:

The data represents spending and people employed by Quangos in the financial year 2007/08.
There's no spending or jobs data for more than 50 of the bodies mentioned in the Quango cuts document (e.g. Ofwat, Ofcom, Regional Development Agencies, SOCA's merging with National Crime Agency, UK Supreme Court and many others).
These… Read More